Leaving
by Moonlit-Jeannie
Summary: He had a plane to catch and no matter how much he didn’t want to go, he had to. Oneshot.


**Title: **Leaving

**Author: **Allie

**Rating: **G (K)

**Disclaimer: **So I feel a bunch of don't owns coming on. Yepp. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I don't own Life with Derek, Buzz Lightyear, walkie talkies, Morse Code, or the song Leaving on a Jet Plane.

**Summary: **He had a plane to catch and no matter how much he didn't want to go, he had to.

**Author's Note: **So this is my first songfic. I really wanted to write this after I had it stuck in my head at work all day today… so, I came home and wrote it. I know it may suck, but whatever. I don't care, lol. It's a one-shot and obviously AU. Sort of a 'what if George was the one who left and not Abby', even though we aren't clear on the terms of the separation of George and Abby… Also, yes… I do know that the song Leaving on a Jet Plane applies more to lovers, but hey, I wanted it to apply to this… so I tried to make it apply to this.

_-----_

_All my bags are packed I'm ready to go  
I'm standin' here outside your door  
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye_

_-----_

George heaved the suitcases up off of the floor and walked out of the room.

It had been months since he and Abby had last been able to hold a civil conversation. In all actuality, when George thought about it, he couldn't think of one civil conversation that they had had since one and a half year old Marti was born.

Finally, after months of arguing George and Abby had decided to get a divorce. Abby thought it best if she got the kids and he moved out, but he couldn't stand the thought of being away from his children.

One and a half year old Marti had just learned how to talk and was now working on mastering walking. She was able to go from person to person or table to table without falling for a few feet, but other than that she still had a lot of work to go before she became a pro.

Seven year old Edwin had just started grade two and while Marti was mastering walking, he was busy fine tuning his multiplication and division skills. He was already more advanced than most of the children in his class and was on the same science and reading level of someone who had just completed grade three.

Ten year old Derek was, well, Derek. While Edwin was working on his Math and Marti was working on her walking… Derek was working on his flirting. He was lucky to be in grade five after he failed grade one and the teacher had wanted him held back a year to catch up, but George didn't want that. He bailed him out instead because even though he hated to admit it, Derek was exactly like him at that age. He didn't care about school even though he would have been one of the smartest kids in his class if he had applied himself. Instead, he had cared about girls… and pranks.

Abby had agreed that he could have time to say goodbye to the children when he left, but instead of allowing him to at least wait until later in the morning when they would be awake and getting ready for school, she wanted him to leave now, at nearly four o'clock in the morning. He sighed and set down his suitcases in the hallway and slowly opened the door to Derek's room. He knew that he would be asleep, but he still wanted to say goodbye to his children before he had to leave them.

"Dad?" Derek asked when he heard the door open.

He turned around from his place at the window and looked at George before he turned off the flashlight in his hand.

George shook his head. For the past few weeks, Derek and Emily, their next door neighbor and Derek's best friend had been speaking in the most peculiar ways at the most peculiar times. He had found them trying to string two cans together in between their windows one night and another day had found a paper airplane in the yard while he was mowing that the two had tried to fly from one window to the other.

Emily's dad didn't really like Derek, especially since he had plowed his bicycle into their hedges two weeks earlier. He thought that Emily should be friends with little girls instead of little boys, especially boys who caused as much trouble as Derek. Mr. Davis had taken it upon himself to help Emily make new friends and tried to keep Emily and Derek from playing together during the day, but that didn't stop them from sending Morse Code signals by flashlight when it was late enough, or from using their walkie talkies, or any of the other forms of communication that the two came up with.

"I'm sorry I'm up so late, I'll go to bed now," the ten year old insisted.

George gave a weak laugh. "It's fine. I'm actually glad you're up, I thought that you would already be asleep."

"You're glad that I'm still awake?" Derek asked confused.

George nodded and sat down on the bed. Derek set the flashlight down on the windowsill and walked over to the bed and sat down next to his dad.

The two sat like that, in silence, for a moment before Derek noticed the light in the hall and the bags that sat in the doorway.

"What's going on? Are you going to visit Grandma? Is she sick?"

George sighed and turned to face his son. "No, your grandmother isn't sick. I'm, well… I have to leave. I don't want to, I really don't. But your mother and I, well, we think that it's best if I go."

"Is it because I destroyed Mr. Davis' bushes? Because I can replace that… and I'll apologize to Mrs. O'Farrell about what I did to her cat, or… I'll at least tell her what I did to her cat. I'll help out more with Smarti, Dad. I'll, um…" Derek thought about what else he could do that might possibly keep his father from leaving them, him. "I'll do my homework and not talk to the girls in my class! I'll study for my spelling test! I'll do it right now! I'll be nice to Edwin and not--"

"Derek," George said sternly and cut his son off from listing every single thing that he would do. "I'm not leaving because of you…I love you, I love your brother, I love your sister, and…" he hesitated, "I love your mom too, Derek. You know that your mother and I haven't been getting along very well since before Marti was born. And, well, we've decided that it would be best if we got a divorce… and your mother," George once again paused, "Your mother and I both think that it would be a good thing for me to move out…"

"So you're leaving? Just like that?" Derek scoffed. "Not even going to say goodbye to Ed or to Marti? You weren't even going to say goodbye to me!"

"That's not it, Derek!" George insisted. He cautiously placed a hand on his son's shoulder, but Derek shrugged it off.

"Sure it is! You thought that you would be a chicken and wait until we're all asleep before you left, but oh, Derek's never fit into your plans has he?" He asked sarcastically. "Sorry I ruined that for you, Dad," Derek spat.

"It isn't like that at all… I wanted to wait until you kids were awake and say goodbye then… that just didn't work well, though. Your mom made me see that those would not be the best circumstances to send you kids to school under."

"Oh, and waking up to see you already gone would be?" Derek retorted.

"No, but… I don't know! I just wanted to say goodbye. Okay? I came in here to say goodbye to you, and then I was going to say goodbye to Ed, and to Marti too. There's a taxi on its way to pick me up and I have to leave soon, Derek. I don't want to go, but I have to. Your mom and I are getting a divorce and I can't possibly stay here when we are divorced. I have to go, no matter how much I may want to stay here with you, okay?"

Derek sighed and nodded. "Okay. I'll be right back, okay?" he asked. Derek stood from the bed and walked to the door before he looked back. He smiled at George and walked away. To where, George wasn't sure, but he figured that he was going to the bathroom.

George turned toward the window and saw a series of flashes. He stood up, grabbed the flashlight from the windowsill, and opened the window. At that exact moment, Emily looked up and saw George standing in the window instead of Derek. Her eyes widened and she quickly pulled down the window shade, clearly embarrassed.

-----

_But the dawn is breakin' it's early morn  
The taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his horn  
Already I'm so lonesome I could die_

_-----_

George made his way back over to Derek's bed and sat down before he look at his watch.

4:25 a.m. He had called the taxi just before four and they had said it would be about thirty minutes before someone would be there to pick him up. George only hoped that Derek would be back before the taxi arrived for him and he had to leave.

A horn sounded and George sighed. 4:27 a.m. Right on time.

He closed his eyes for a moment and hoisted himself off of the bed before he left the room and grabbed the suitcases. George paused for a moment and waited for Derek.

The horn sounded again and George looked at his watch once more, 4:29 a.m.

George pulled out the handles to the suitcases and pulled them along behind him, down the rest of the hallway before, finally, down the stairs.

Once he was downstairs, George saw something that he didn't expect to see. Something that he would have missed if he hadn't looked over at the VCR to see the time.

There, lined up and looking over the back of the couch, were his children.

Edwin was fidgeting in his Buzz Lightyear pajamas and trying to smooth his bed head down to look like Derek's not so bed head.

Marti was sleepily rubbing at her eyes with one hand while her other was in her mouth. When she saw George, she removed the hand from her mouth and the other from her eyes and began to bounce up and down with her hands in the air as if reaching for him.

"Up?" she asked.

Derek, who was helping Marti balance on the couch stood up with the girl in his arms and carried her over to George.

"They wanted to say goodbye too," he shrugged as he passed the toddler off to her father. "I'll take care of these," he motioned to the suitcases and grabbed one by the handle with both hands before he began to drag it to the door.

Derek paused long enough to open the door before he turned back around to focus his attention on the task at hand. That task was to get the suitcase from the house to the car that waited for his father.

"You got it?" George asked.

Derek nodded and huffed, angry that his father didn't think that he could do this one thing.

"Ed, you get the other one," he demanded.

The little boy pouted, but did as his older brother said.

-----

_So kiss me and smile for me  
Tell me that you'll wait for me  
Hold me like you'll never let me go_

-----

George walked over to the couch and collapsed onto it, Marti still in his arms. She giggled. His daughter was a happy baby. Derek had been very moody as a baby, but every once in awhile would have a happy streak. Edwin was a quiet baby. The quiet child, really.

"Give Daddy a kiss?" he asked.

Marti smacked her lips together and put her hand to her mouth before she touched George's cheek with the same hand.

"Thank you," he smiled. "You're not going to forget Daddy, will you? I'll try to come see you for your birthday… and for Christmas, but I won't see you as much as I do now. You won't forget me will you? You won't grow up too fast for me and go off and find some boy to marry before I even get to come back and visit you and your brothers for Christmas, will you Marti?"

Marti opened her mouth in her wide, nearly toothless grin and laughed.

"I don't think I like that answer, I'll have Derek keep an eye on you and make sure that you don't run off with Dimi or any other little boys, how does that sound?"

She scrunched up her face and opened it wide again. "No!" she laughed.

"Hmm, I think I will."

He sighed as he stared at his daughter who had no clue that her father was leaving and would not be back to see his children until December. He wasn't even sure if she would remember him by that time.

"You won't forget Daddy, will you?" George found himself asking again.

"No!" Marti laughed.

Of course, no just happened to be Marti's new favorite word, but George wanted to take solace in it.

"Dad? We took your bags out to the car," Derek said as he and Edwin entered the house.

"Thanks you guys."

"Are you really leaving?" Edwin asked. "Derek told me that you were going to, but you told me not to believe everything that Derek told me."

George smiled. He had told him that after Derek had informed him that the tooth fairy didn't really want to take the teeth from under his pillow at night, but really wanted to pull out his brain through his nose while he was asleep. It was something that Derek had learned earlier that week about the Egyptian burial process and only Derek would half listen in class to learn new ways to scare his little brother.

"I'm really leaving, Ed. Can I have a hug?" George asked hesitantly.

The Venturi men weren't much for displays of affection unless it came to Marti, something that his sons had received from him, but he hoped that they would make an exception.

Surprisingly, Derek had been the first one to cross over from the door to the couch and envelope his father in a hug. Edwin soon followed and finally, Marti leaned up to slobber on her father's cheek before she gave an exclamation of 'lub Daddy!', baby speak for 'I love you, Daddy'.

The horn sounded again, obviously when Derek had told the guy it would be a few minutes before his dad would be out he didn't listen, and George handed Marti back to Derek before he wiped the slobber off of his cheek.

"Well, I guess this is it. I have to go."

Derek nodded as tears welled up in his eyes and Edwin looked at his brother and sister before he looked at George and nodded as well, with tears also welling up in his eyes.

Marti didn't know why everyone looked so sad, but she did know that she wasn't finished having fun time with her Daddy and began to struggle against Derek's grip.

George walked to the door and closed it behind him. He then made his way to the taxi and didn't look back until he was in the back seat and the driver had pulled off. He had a plane to catch and no matter how much he didn't want to go, he had to.

Back at the Venturi home Marti continued to struggle against Derek before she finally freed herself and slid down to the floor. She tottered toward the door, but fell when she was only halfway there.

Her large blue eyes grew and filled with tears, but Derek grabbed her before she could begin to really cry.

"It'll be okay, Marti," he assured the baby who was only crying because she wanted to play with her Daddy, not because she realized that he had left them. "I'll make sure that everything will be okay."

_-----_

_Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane  
Don't know when I'll be back again  
Oh babe, I hate to go_

-----


End file.
